Hurdlr has raised $3.2 million in its first funding round as the deal tracker for freelancers develops a version tailored for real estate agents.
Hurdlr has been around for over two years, giving freelancers in all industries a way to track their expenses and manage the back-end of their personal businesses.
The iOS and Android app is currently rolling out a version of its product specifically tailored to the business management needs of real estate agents – and has raised $3.2 million to help further its expansion. Hurdlr won the Realogy FWD competition in September for its real estate specific application.
The Washington, DC-based startup received $3.2 million in a funding round led by venture capital firm TTV Capital with participation from angel investors Tom Ferry, the real estate coach, and Chris Heller, l former CEO of Keller Williams and current CEO of loanDepot’s. home services brand mello Home. This is the first external capital brought by the startup.
Hurdlr’s revenue tracker. 1 credit
“For too long, I’ve seen agents fail to meet the financial goals they should have met. With Hurdlr’s focus on agent profitability and productivity, it not only helps those agents, but the brokerage as well. They just have a very smart product and the founders have a track record of success,” Heller said of his decision to invest.
Hurdlr will use the money to grow the product and customer service teams as it grows its real estate vertical and continues to develop the rest of the iOS and Android app. The general version of the app allows freelancers to track income, expenses, mileage, taxes, and other business metrics for their own “back office.”
The real estate version of the Hurdlr app offers goal setting features, such as the “front office” of an agent’s activity, as well as the usual revenue tracking components of the app. Agents can enter how much they want to earn in take home pay over the next 12 months, and the app will break down monthly and weekly goals, taking into account average sales prices and transaction volumes for the agent’s region.
“It’s not a CRM,” Hurdlr co-founder and CEO Raj Bhaskar said in an interview with Inman. “How do you help them with basic finances and their business plan? These are the basics that people do not master.
The real estate features are only available to agents whose brokers and franchisors partner with Hurdlr to offer the enterprise version to their agents. Bhaskar declined to share which brokers have signed up so far, though the startup has boasted of a previous partnership with Keller Williams for its regular, non-real estate-specific platform. The startup is still working on signing more brokers and franchisors.
“Most agents still use spreadsheets and paper to track finances, or just bank statements,” Bhaskar said. “To be successful and profitable, we believe they need to have a basic tool. We want to work with all franchisors to spread this to make agents more productive and profitable.”
Hurdlr decided to move from general freelancing tools to real estate partly because of the history of Bhaskar and his co-founder Anu Bhaskar in the field. Prior to founding Hurdlr, they developed VisualHOMES, a tool for public and affordable housing agencies to manage their business, later acquired by Yardi. This experience made real estate an obvious first choice for Hurdlr’s 14-person team.
Around 30,000 agents are already using Hurdlr in its general version and early adopters in its real estate vertical, Bhaskar said. In other industries, Hurdlr users include other types of agents, financial advisors, Uber drivers, Airbnb hosts, designers, writers, and small business owners.
Hurdlr recognizes its back-end competitors for business management — including big names like QuickBooks — but thinks its front-end features will set it apart, especially in real estate. Then the startup could add specialized verticals to other industries, but the focus is on real estate for now.
Email Emma Hinchliffe
